Out of Order Screen

[mrcrazy04]

+1 on that one. The other issue which has been touched on is that a lot of students (and staff?) would not be able to cope with a PC that is 'on' being out of order. It's either off, has a sign and is broken, or it's on and usable. Would just result in lots of resets, unplugging and plugging then a "can you come and look at the PC in..." here.

 

Most people have a job coping with anything being out of order - over the summer I worked in Tesco, and people would try to scan their shopping through a self service till which was crashed, off, or booting, and had a laminated notice saying "This facility is temporarily out of order" in big letters attached to the screen. So whatever happens, some idiot will still try to use it!

[ascott2]

I've had an idea on how to do this. You could make a USB device boot into DOS and then using some ASCII art to display your sign. Not sure about stopping inputs though?

[Michael]

To be honest, I usually get a piece of paper and write "out of order" and that's that. I also make a point of removing the power lead.

 

Yes, believe it or not I've had some twits remove the sign and try to use it anyway!

[powdarrmonkey]

I've had an idea on how to do this. You could make a USB device boot into DOS and then using some ASCII art to display your sign. Not sure about stopping inputs though?

 

That's easy enough, it's the other problems we discussed when this thread lived that were too much hassle to be viable.

[OutToLunch]

I've had an idea on how to do this. You could make a USB device boot into DOS and then using some ASCII art to display your sign. Not sure about stopping inputs though?

 

... And approximately 0.0000002 seconds later when some oik has stolen your USB stick and tried to reboot it?

[browolf]

Most people have a job coping with anything being out of order - over the summer I worked in Tesco, and people would try to scan their shopping through a self service till which was crashed, off, or booting, and had a laminated notice saying "This facility is temporarily out of order" in big letters attached to the screen. So whatever happens, some idiot will still try to use it!

 

this is why I think if a machine is gonna be left out of order it might as be taken away. The minute the sign inevitably disappears,falls off,removed for a joke, kids and teachers will waste time trying to use it, sending kids to us for support etc. If its not there at all they can deal with the situation in an instance.

[localzuk]

this is why I think if a machine is gonna be left out of order it might as be taken away. The minute the sign inevitably disappears,falls off,removed for a joke, kids and teachers will waste time trying to use it, sending kids to us for support etc. If its not there at all they can deal with the situation in an instance.

 

All well and good if you have the space to remove broken computers to... But when your workshop space is a countertop a few foot wide, there's not much space for them.

[GrumbleDook]

Being away from the chalk face for a bit I keep thinking I would look into this when I had spare time. I had thought about making use of PXE to boot from a remote image that has a warning message that the computer can not be used at this time, but I have not had a chance to see whether this is possible and how it could be managed.

[grumpy_git]

It might solve the issue of not having a sign with you when you notice a dodgy computer. Many times I have identified a dud machine, but have had to either go to the nearest cupboard to get a laminated sign or scribble something on a bit of file paper (which looks naff).

 

I do agree with the 'psychological' thing, though, in that if a computer is "on" the users think that means it's "theirs". Hence pulling the power lead out is useful - but sod's law this is the one time they actually check that it's plugged in, instead of calling IT...